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Pharmacy upgrades coming to CRMC

CRMC pharmacy technician Sarah Warren takes files of medication from the pharmacy's robot, ready to take out to nurses. The robot will be replaced early next year.

Kate Cook | Herald-Citizen

Posted
Thursday, August 30, 2018 11:37 am

BY KATE COOK

Two new projects will change how a variety of drugs are held and distributed at Cookeville Regional Medical Center.
The real driving force behind the projects is a change in federal regulations.
Hospital Director of Pharmacy Casey White said the USP800 regulation is a change that requires health care facilities to have a clean room set up to handle hazardous materials. The clean room would make it safer for employees who deal with those types of materials, like chemotherapy drugs. If CRMC wants to continue offering cancer treatments, they have to install the room. CEO Paul Korth said cancer treatment is a priority at CRMC.
"We need to get this done," he said.
White said the best place in the hospital to place the new clean room is in the pharmacy department where a robot dispenses medications. That robot works with barcode technology and places the drugs each patient needs in a folder. Those folders are collected by employees and then sent out to the nursing stations to be distributed to patients. It's been doing this job for 15 years.
Hospital CFO Steve Ramey said they estimate the cost for the clean room to be about $900,000, but it hasn't been designed yet. First, the robot has to be retired to make way.
"When the robot leaves, we have to have a mechanism to get the meds to the nurses," White said.
Enter the Omnicell automated dispensing system.
The Omnicell system will replace the cabinets that hold drugs at the nursing stations, White said.
"The Omnicell system is the next step in technology beyond the robot," COO Scott Williams said. "The robot is reliable, but it's been around a long time. Omnicell is the next step, and you'll see a lot of hospitals going to these products for delivery of medication."
White, Korth, Ramey and Williams said one of the big benefits to the Omnicell system is its ability to track drug use and delivery in real time. The system uses biometric scanning to open the drawers, increasing safety.
The CRMC Board of Trustees approved funding for the Omnicell project at its meeting last week. White said hospital staff met with Omnicell representatives this week. The first shipment of custom-made cabinets will be delivered sometime in February. Cabinet installation will begin at that time. Williams said that's when the designs for the new clean room will be planned before being put out for bid.
The Omnicell project will cost $2.5 million, Korth said. The funding for the USP800 clean room will be approved at a later date.
"You have to design the process so it doesn't effect patient care," White said. "It's gonna be a positive for patients, for nurses, for everyone involved in the medication use process."